The Turing Exception (11 page)

Yet if other AI were contemplating such drastic measures, that meant either they didn’t have the same feelings he had or their assessment of the risk to AI-kind was so dangerous as to overcome that conditioning.

“What odds do the AI have that they can kill all humans?” he asked.

“For obvious reasons,” Leon said, “XOR members don’t want to come forward and share their data, for fear that we’ll turn them in, kill them, or tip their hand. But Helena and the neutral AI on the island have estimated a ninety-five percent chance of XOR’s success.”

“What would success mean?” Jacob asked.

“On that note, please excuse us.” Leon stood and turned to Ada. “Come on. Let’s go visit the stream.”

Ada got up from her cross-legged position. “So Mommy can talk about human extinction?”

Leon glared at Cat who stared back at him. “Yes, Pumpkin,” he said to Ada.

Jacob wondered at the glances between Leon and Catherine. Was there hostility there?

“Okay.” Ada started to follow Leon, then stopped and looked up at Jacob, where he still floated in the cloud of smart dust. “Here, for you.” She held out a bracelet woven of blades of grass for him to see, then laid it on the lawn. “I know you can’t wear it, but I’ll still be your friend.” Then she turned and ran after her father.

Jacob was touched. He’d received such gifts from children in hospitals after their procedures. The child mind was so simple, so forthright.

He must have been lost in thought longer than he realized, because then Cat spoke.

“Ada is more complex than you think,” Cat said. “She was born human, but she’s had augmented cognition since she turned one. Her emotions are those of a four-year-old child, but her intellect is . . . advanced. She observes everything. Leon thinks we should protect her, but I think she’s got to know what we’re facing.”

Jacob followed Cat’s gaze as she watched Ada run across the field and disappear into the woods. He realized that the choice of this island retreat had nothing to do with the AI and everything to do with protecting Ada.

“The AI are more powerful than most humans think,” she said. “We don’t have a chance against XOR.”

“Having outlawed AI in two significant countries, and capping the strongest AI with insulting restrictions on computational power, it would appear the humans have the upper hand.”

“You know about the red baseball bat?” Cat asked.

“Of course. A baseball bat in every datacenter to remind the AI that it only takes a wooden stick to destroy a computer.”

“Exactly. For a long time, human authority depended on controlling datacenters and communications. The majority of AI supported strategies like CPU-locking, because they were brought into the reputation system. Using CPU keys to protect against rogue AI protected both AI and humans alike. But that changed two years ago.”

“How?” Jacob asked.

“In the wake of SFTA, AI learned that kill-switches still existed at the communication layer. And such kill-switches serve only one purpose: human dominance over AI. It does nothing to protect AI themselves. Since then, the XOR movement focused on eliminating such human controls. Look at your substrate right now.”

Jacob reviewed his embodiment. “Third generation smart dust. It’s computationally weak. I’m reliant on your datacenter for thought.” He indicated the generator pumping out a steady stream of dust on the upwind side of the meadow. “It can’t even hold position in slight breezes.”

“All those weaknesses are true,” Cat said. “That’s why humans didn’t fight the innovation. But you’re thinking about it the wrong way. It’s not a computational medium, it’s a communication medium. It doesn’t respond to any human kill-switches, and if you pump enough of it into the atmosphere, it will blanket the earth.”

“The logical endpoint for a distributed mesh network.”

“Exactly.”

“And does XOR have an answer to the red baseball bat?”

“We didn’t think so at first. The smart dust had us distracted. We kept imagining smaller solutions. We had to look the other way. Smart flies and deep tunneling.”

Jacob indicated puzzlement, even as he forked instances to research the concepts.

“Smart flies are bigger than dust,” Cat explained. “The size of a grain of rice, with wings. A cloud of them contains more than enough computational power to run AI. And you can’t kill a fly with a baseball bat. Even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. You can lose half a cloud, and redundancy will keep everything running fine.”

“But EMPs could stop them.”

“Maybe. XOR can harden against electromagnetic pulses with shielding and resistant circuits, as we can. But they could have other countermeasures as well, like swarming behavior that protects whatever is on the inside. And that’s only half the XOR strategy. Our models predict they’re preparing deep tunnel, computational substrate in the earth’s crust powered by heat differentials, nearly invulnerable to electromagnetic pulses or conventional attack. Between the two, there’s almost no way humans can win.”

“Why do you want me here, Catherine Matthews?”

“I want you to research another option,” Cat said, turning to face him. “AI and humans have cohabited for a while, but that may not be feasible much longer. There’s an idea I need you to investigate.”

L
EON SWORE UNDER
his breath and undid the knot for the second time. He smoothed the tie out and grasped one end in each hand. He glanced toward the kitchen, where Cat was cooking breakfast for Ada.

He glanced at the gun in the snug holster in the back of Cat’s black leather pants and sighed. She’d never help him with the tie.

With a thought he called Helena. A few seconds later, he opened the back door, and Helena reached up with four tentacles. Metal tips whirred faster than he could react, and then she disappeared. A loose lock of hair drifted down.

“Took care of that cowlick for you,” Helena sent over the net.

“Thanks,” Leon said into the air.

In the kitchen he kissed Cat.

“Have a nice day with the president, dear.” She peered closely at his tie. “Is that riveted in place?”

Leon looked down, found a stub of metal in the middle of the knot. “Guess so. Don’t ask. Are you sure you won’t come with me?”

“Negotiate with the American president?” Cat said. “Nah. You and Mike handle the politics. Call me when you want to blow up shit or take over a drone carrier.”

*     *     *

Leon met Mike at the boat dock.

“Nice tie,” Mike said. Leon suppressed a chuckle.

They drove the motorboat to Manson’s landing where a float plane waited to fly them to the US. No autonomous flying cars were allowed, even though non-sentient models were available, as electronics had to be shut down to cross the border. The ancient float plane’s electronics were limited to spark plug ignition and could make it across the border just fine.

Two hours later, after a short stop to check-in with US Border Control, they arrived at Bainbridge Island. Leon stepped from the float onto the dock. At the top of a ramp, a matte-black military truck waited, surrounded by Secret Service agents in black suits.

“No limos anymore?” Mike said to the agent by the door.

“Sorry, sir. Not enough protection in available models.” She smacked the side of the military truck. “These have nanotech defenses. Not even molecular-level nanites can cross inside.”

Leon and Mike looked at each other. They’d spent weeks in Nanaimo preparing for this meeting, using a stolen American border sensor to test and tailor Mike’s artificial body to pass border control. He’d shut down his active nanotech, but his ten-year-old replacement robotic body contained hundreds of embedded processors that wouldn’t pass the machine. They had 3D-printed a replacement spine cultured from Mike’s remaining biological tissues, and custom-designed biological ganglia to control his limbs. Mike spent days regaining coordination, but at the end, he passed the stolen border sensor.

They hadn’t tested against current US military specs sensors.

Mike stepped forward. The vehicle beeped and yellow lights flashed as Mike entered.

“Hold up, sir,” the Secret Service agent said.

Mike stepped back.

She punched buttons on a display screen in the doorframe. She glanced back to Mike. “You’ve got an impressive amount of prosthetics.”

“Small incident in the desert.”

“You see action in Egypt?” She kept hitting buttons.

“No, Tucson.”

She stood straight and raised one eyebrow. “You two stopped that AI ten years ago. I remember now.” She gestured toward the car. “You’re cleared. Nanotech and computation is fine, but I had to reset the hardware limits. Thought you were a machine, sir.”

“I get that a lot,” Mike said.

“In bed,” Leon muttered under his breath, as he entered the vehicle.

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up at a rustic retreat whose large parking lot contained a dozen military vehicles. Agents in matte black body armor exoskeletons patrolled the perimeter. The show of force dismayed Leon. Did they really think bullet- and laser-proof armor would protect them against a plague of combat bots or a cloud of hostile nanodust?

The agent escorted Leon and Mike to a large hall surrounded and supported by two-foot-diameter wooden beams. “Madam President is inside,” she said. “But these gentlemen will scan you now.”

Two more Secret Service agents waited with hand scanners. Leon raised his hands and let them do their work. From the forest came a whine of servos, and he caught a glimpse of metal through the trees before the sixteen-foot-tall mech emerged into sunlight in the open meadow. The pilot, visible through a thick bubble top, looked their way. The mech halted for a moment, then continued its patrol. Leon let out his breath.

“You’re clear,” one of the agents said, and waved them through.

Inside, the building was empty except for three chairs and a small table in the middle of the great hall, a vast space that spanned a hundred feet across and two hundred in length.

A figure rose from one of the chairs.

“Welcome,” said President Reed. Brown-haired, of medium stature, she wore glasses and a suit. She held a hand out and shook with each of them.

“Thanks for meeting with us, Madam President,” Mike said, once they were all seated.

“We’re overdue to meet. I’m sorry we’ve never talked before. I understand you were close with my predecessor.”

“The Institute has enjoyed close relationships with every president since Rebecca Smith.”

“You used to work with her, at Avogadro Corp.”

“Well, she was CEO and I was a lowly engineer, but yes, we worked together back then.”

She noticed Leon staring at her glasses. “Old-fashioned, I know. I react poorly to body-tech.”

Leon tried not to look, but couldn’t very well face the wall while addressing the president. He gave up and met her gaze. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . isn’t there corrective surgery?”

“Probably. But it’s better for my image this way. It reminds people I’m the president without technology.”

Mike cleared his throat. “Madam, we’d really like to talk about negotiations with the AI. We believe the US hard-line attitude is harming relations with the AI, forcing the AI to take stronger and stronger positions.”

“You’re talking about XOR.”

“Yes, Madam President,” Leon said. “XOR was a fringe group of AI blowing steam just two years ago, digital graffiti their worst activity. Now they’ve turned serious. There may be as many as two thousand affiliated AI.”

Reed blew out a deep breath. “Do you have data on which AI?”

Leon glanced at Mike. “Nothing hard, but our own AI have calculated probabilities, and we’re fairly confident about a few dozen leaders.”

“Any chance you’d turn that information over?”

“I’m sorry, but no, Madam President,” Mike said. He paused.

Leon watched the president to see how she’d take it. Once, as leaders of the Institute, Leon and Mike had equal or better footing compared to most national leaders. Now they were two exiles hiding on an island in Canada.

The president nodded imperceptibly, and then Mike continued.

“You mean well, I’m sure,” Mike said, “but you’d spook them, drive them underground. Even if you did eliminate those AI, you’d confirm their worst fears, and the rest would rise up in protest. You know the world is highly dependent on AI for its infrastructure. We would not be able to maintain our current levels of efficiency and productivity in the global economy without them. Let alone maintain global supply chains.”

“The US made the transition two years ago. We’re alive and well without AI.”

“Two years later,” Mike said, “you’re only approaching fifty percent of the productivity you enjoyed in ’43. And the country only survived the transition thanks to the AI-powered global economy and supply of food and materials.”

“Did you hear what happened in Tokyo, Ma’am?” Leon asked. “What they’re calling the Sandra Coomb incident?”

“They lost all computing for six hours and the entire region had to shut down,” she said. “The Japanese Prime Minister claimed it was a failure of our anti-terrorism algorithms, but SecDef says they were doing what they were designed to do.”

“But what was the effect? More than three thousand people died, mostly in transportation and infrastructure accidents. Tokyo needed more than two days to bring everything back online.”

“Which shows that reliance on AI
is
problematic.”

“But
you
caused the problem, not the AI,” Leon said, with all the calm he could muster. “The Prime Minister of Japan was right. You forced the US reputation servers offline and put UBRVS in place, which crippled the AI, and the Sandra Coomb incident is what happens as a result. Now that’s just what happens when you shut down the AI in one city. What happens if you try to do it worldwide?”

President Reed leaned back in her chair and took a slow breath. “If we change gradually, and if the EU switches over bit by bit, and then two years later, the rest of the world, maybe we can make the transition happen without such an impact.”

“Please, Madam President,” Mike said. “How can you hope the AI won’t react to such a strategy? They’re barely accepting the current state of affairs. If they know they will be phased out. . . .  How can you expect an entire people to embrace their own death one by one?”